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List of shame: the 312 MPs who voted to take free school meals from 1m poor children

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, MPs defeated a Labour motion, moved by Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner, to block a planned government move that will take a free, hot school meal from the mouths of around one million children from low-income families.

Tory MPs have attempted to deflect blame for their callousness by selectively quoting a Channel 4 Fact Check article – which said it could not fault the Labour Party’s calculations – in order to claim they are actually giving free meals to an additional 50,000 children and not taking it away from the million.

But that pathetic deflection was laid to rest in the very first exchange of the debate around Labour’s motion:

Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)

Does the hon. Lady agree with Channel 4’s FactCheck, which says:

“This is not a case of the government taking free school meals from a million children”.

These are children who are not currently receiving free school meals, and in fact the Government’s proposals ​would see 50,000 extra children receive free school meals. Perhaps the hon. Lady could stop giving inaccurate information to the House.

Angela Rayner

The hon. Gentleman should know that his Government have introduced transitional arrangements, and we are clear that under the transitional arrangements, those 1 million children would be entitled to free school meals. With the regulations, the Government are pulling the rug from under those hard-working families.

In my own boroughs of Oldham and Tameside, a total of 8,700 children growing up in poverty are set to miss out. In the Secretary of State’s own area, the total is 6,500. So much for the light at the end of the tunnel that the Chancellor mentioned over the weekend on “The Andrew Marr Show”!

The UK has one of the worst rates of child malnutrition and ‘food insecurity’ among rich nations – with one in five UK children suffering food insecurity.

In spite of this – and the callousness of depriving hungry schoolchildren of food, with the consequent impact on their health and education – the government defeated the motion.

Not a single Tory MP rebelled – and of the ten DUP MPs, ‘incentivised‘ by a Theresa May pledge to maintain the free school meals for Northern Irish children – only one declined to vote away the provision for children in Britain.

The full roll-call of shame of MPs who voted down Labour’s attempt to protect poor children from hunger is below:

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They’ve already directly contributed to the deaths of thousands, if not tens, or even hundreds of thousands with their ‘austerity’ measures.

Who seriously believes they’ll give a flying one regarding any protest about starving children when they ONLY care about their own snouts in the trough?

Memo to middle classes: Your ignorance can only stretch so far before YOU become complicit. You’re extremely close to that stage of complicity at this very moment.

No handwringing excuses and apologies. Once they’ve removed the lower classes (By fiscal genocide – NOT by eradicating poverty & inequality in the manner you’d like to believe they’re endeavouring to) then do not think for one second you’ll be exempt from those same measures… They’ll want what you’re left with…And they’ll get it.

And there won’t be anyone but yourselves to fight your corner because you fell for the divisive snide tricks they’ve played. You never were, and never will be ‘one of them’. So stop falling for their ‘aspirational’ bullshit right the f**k NOW.

To Stella Creasy Jess Phillips and all others in the PLP who like to PAL UP WITH TORIES .
The image of the cosy chat Phillips had with JRM and the sofa , Creasy hanging on the side of some Tory twat at a concert WTF

THIS , THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T EVER EVER MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE ENEMY NOT EVEN TO TAKE THE PISS OUT OF THOSE OF US WHO SUPPORT REAL LABOUR UNDER JC.
Your enemy are the Tory Politicians EVERY FUCKING ONE OF THEM not us in the Labour party who support JC ,,, get it now !!!

BARBARIANS TO A MAN AND WOMAN.
They take the food for the mouths of poor kids.
And force the homeless to sleep in the cold.
They ignore the elderly in social care.
But stuff the mouths of the rich with gold!

Hi Skwawkbox, can you check the list of MPs shown here? I note that there are Scottish MPs named, and while I believe they did indeed go through the lobbies, their votes were not counted as the vote was on England only legislation. This should also exclude any votes from Welsh or Northern Ireland MPs…

Nothing to stop all MPs voting on any legislation. “England only” refers to the line-by-line consideration of a bill in committee. If the bill relate only to England the committee will have only English members

You stuff your pockets with our money, charging us for every little expense and yet you deny the most vulnerable in society a free meal?? What kind of leeches are you? I hope that every time you put a morsel of food in your fat greedy mouths you remember those poor little children. I hope that every time you look at your own children you feel deep shame. Just pray you and yours are never in that situation. You are beyond disgusting.

as will any of those on this and other lists of shame be reminded when they come squirming out of there mud huts begging for votes to be asked about there voting history before I tell t them to do one and why

Alistair Jack, you despicable, odious little man. Your sort are the scourge of the working class. How cancerous little people like you get into any position of authority is beyond sickening. You earn more than what your job titles reflects, you extort tax payers money via expenses and get second homes paid for, whilst removing kids free meals.

I see Graham Stuart is on the list. He always is and without fail always agrees with every despicable vote by this utterly vile, evil and corrupt bunch of tory degenerates. Shame on you. Are you totally void of a conscience? Surely there must be something you are asked to vote for, which you don’t agree with. You simply cannot be so totally wretched and inhumane and so incapable of any kind of feeling for other human beings.

So DUP vote for the motion knowing full well that Ireland keep their free school meals package!!
The whole thing is despicable!! Totally heartless people.
I work with families at ground level in a deprived area & this is heartbreaking.

Haven’t these MPs ever heard the quote: ‘Any society is only three meals away from revolution’. Typical of these shameless Tory MPs really. What’s most disturbing, though, is the greedy people that vote these parasites that vote them in!

In essence: the ‘pond life’ are the MPs and the detritritus the pond life feed off are yes, you guessed it, THEIR VOTERS – ‘WHAT A SORRY EXCUSE FOR HUMANITY!!!

Is this right that the DUP gets a vote on this even though it is EVEL? But Wales and Scotland don’t? Is that the DUPs ‘punishment’ for failing to agree a power sharing arrangement?
I just wrote to my worse than useless MP about this.He’ll probably whine that he is representing a Welsh constituency [however, he voted for EVEL because he is a Tory first and foremost].

A disgraceful act of treachery on the most vulnerable in our community not one of these MPs children will go without ever in their lives
We will never forgive them
Well may they cringe at the next general election, it may be their last

Its such a shame, They have no idea of the struggles of us ordinary people, there was a time while I was getting back on my feet as a single parent that I was very glad of the free school meals, I knew both my boys had had a decent hot meal, especially as school dinner have much improved since I was at school, and it meant I had more money to try an put a decent meal on the table in the evening as things were so tight especially with bills, rent and food costs rising year on year. once I was up and running I was glad to pay for them. most of us just need that little helping hand.

Did no one bother checking this shoddy journalism then. They are comparing two hypothetical scenarios both of which are more generous than the current system. Very misleading article. It’s just that Labour wants to be more generous than the conservatives. No one is depriving anyone of anything. I’m a labour voter and the worst thing about this article is the damage you (the author) do by giving misleading half truths to deceive. sad, very sad .

You’re wrong, Peter. If the Tories had not changed the rules, then defeated Labour’s attempt to prevent the rule-change, a million more kids would be getting school meals. However Tory apologists try to spin it, Labour’s claim is entirely factual – and the Tories voted to prevent those children from poor families being fed at school for free

peterfaretra,
You are a Labour Voter?
“WHY”?
The damage, Skwawkbox is (the author) giving misleading information!
I’m not a person who is shocked easily, I have to say, your statement is a complete misnomer!
You should be ashamed of yourself!
Try looking through a pair of binoculars the rightway.

They do it because they know people won’t do anything to stop them. Remember, over half of voting Brits elected these miscreants. One out of every two voting-age people you see every day are in favour of these deprivations.